The invention relates to a method of fabricating an optical component. The optical component consists of a large number of thin glassy layers of different refractive indices deposited from the vapor phase in a prescribed sequence on a solid substrate. Gratings made in this way are used, for example, in optical telecommunications.
European Patent Application No. 0,017,296 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,143) describes the fabrication of rotationally symmetric lenses by depositing, from vapor phase, a large number of thin glassy layers of different refractive indices into grooves in a glass plate. The thickness of the coated glass plate is reduced, after the glass deposition, to its original value. There remain in the grooves the halves of so-called Luneberg lenses, which consist of superimposed semispherical layers.
In the known method, good results depend on the accuracy with which the grooves are produced in the glass plate and on the precision in the mechanical treatment of the glass layers left after reduction.